“This is biography-as-history in the best sense of the term. . . .Mr. Crassweller gives us what is perhaps the best single-volume history of 20th-century Argentina: sensitive, urbane, deeply comprehending, written in a style worthy of the most important of historical themes.” ―Mark Falcoff, New York Times Book Review
Inevitably, there is much that is enigmatic and generally misunderstood in the tale of Perón, his country, and his civilization. To provide a kind of view from Olympus and a framework for the narrative history that follows, Part I of this book contains brief sketches of what are seen as the enigmas of Argentina and of Perón. The enigmas are, of course, rooted in the past, and the story, intensely human and historical, thus becomes an adventure in time and its interactions in which the past is summoned to elucidate the present.
The author succeeds admirably in defining and describing the complex phenomenon known as Peronism, as well as the distinctive ethos from which it sprang. He also provides a concise history of Argentina, a biography of Juan Peron (and his comparably mythic wife Evita) and in a postscript reviews events in Argentina since Peron's death in 1974....Crassweller brings Peron into clear focus.
